Verified Document

General Motors Company And Alternatives To Realize Case Study

General Motors Company and Alternatives to Realize Growth Value discipline

According to management theorists Treacy and Wiersema, companies must always ask how they can provide value to their customers (Value Disciplines Model, 2011, Value-Based Management). Such value may be provided by operational excellence -- for example, a company that provides a high-quality product at a relatively low price, because of its ability to capitalize upon efficiency and brand marketing due to economies of scale. A company can also provide value to the customer through offering customer intimacy, or through product leadership by offering a unique type of item. However, due to the size of companies such as General Motors, its value discipline model must be based in its operational excellence. In the highly competitive market of car sales, offering low prices and/or high quality (and preferably both) by operating on an economy of scale is the only way to succeed.

Generic strategy

In the past, General Motors' strategy as a company focused upon generating a wide range of product lines, in contrast to Toyota's leaner format of offering only a few types of cars, most of which were based upon a fairly similar body prototype and marketing strategy. This is often cited as one of the reasons GM experienced such difficulty instituting quality control over its brands. Furthermore, despite the wide range of GM cars, there was relatively little diversity between the actual vehicles to justify GM's extensive...

GM has been pruning and getting rid of its least profitable brands as it returns to solvency as a company, after being 'bailed out' by the federal government.
However, GM's strategy remains focused on a broad market, rather than stresses a particular market segment. It is unlikely to desire to pursue either a broad or a narrow differentiation strategy, particularly given the fact that one of its most currently profitable market segments is in China. Wide-ranging appeal is required, but the products must be specifically tailored to meet each specific market's needs, particularly internationally, in terms of the cars' size and styles.

Grand strategy for General Motors

Grand strategies, as opposed to strategic management, are vision-based rather than tactical. While smaller corporations often do not have a grand strategy, for larger organizations such as General Motors grand strategies are essential. In years past, some industry analysts observed that GM's grand strategy seemed to be to oppose environmentalist legislation, because of its unwillingness to spend money on fuel economizing technology, such as hybrid vehicles. Today, GM is attempting to pursue a greener as well as a leaner strategy, as manifested by its introduction of the plug-in hybrid vehicle, the ultra-fuel efficient Chevy Volt.

Another component of the company' new strategy is globalization. "GM sold 2.35 million vehicles in China, a 29% increase, and about 136,000…

Sources used in this document:
References

Byrt, Frank. (2011, January 27). Ford, GM, and Toyota gear up for battle. The Street. Retrieved January 27, 2011 at http://www.thestreet.com/story/10986663/1/ford-gm-and-toyota-gear-up-for-battle.html

General Motors. (2011). Company information. The New York Times. Retrieved January 27,

2011 at http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/general_motors_corporation/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=General%20Motors&st=cse

Porter's generic strategies. (2010). Quick MBA. Retrieved January 27, 2011
at http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/generic.shtml
http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_valuedisciplines.html
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Ford Motor Company Background and
Words: 5756 Length: 21 Document Type: Thesis

The economic environment is difficult. The United States may finally be showing signs of emerging from recession, but the recent economic difficulty has taken its toll of Ford. Following the short-lived spike provided by the 'cash for clunkers' program, auto sales have slumped again. Many competitors saw sales fall dramatically in the wake of that program. Ford, however, did not suffer as much. While two of its most popular models,

Strategy and Business Model of General Motors
Words: 979 Length: 3 Document Type: Essay

What is Strategy? Strategy represents the development of an advantageous, unique position, entailing diverse activities. An ideally-positioned organization requires no strategy. At strategic positioning’s core is doing activities competitors aren’t. If identical activities proved effective in manufacturing every variety, accessing every client, and satisfying every need, one could conveniently shift between them; further, efficacy of operations would prove to be a performance determinant. Strategy success relies on doing a large number

Apple How a Company Comes
Words: 3512 Length: 12 Document Type: Case Study

The Apple II computer was successfully launched and the company began to take shape and in 1980 the company went public and was able to produce more money than any company since Ford in 1956 (Thirty years of apple). When the company went public it also created more millionaires than had ever been created up to that point (Thirty years of apple). There were several other computers that were released

Motivations of Multi-National Companies. Those
Words: 1789 Length: 4 Document Type: Term Paper

The United States government did a number of things to prop up failing/failed companies to the detriment of the United States deficit and through the enabling of companies that were clearly doing wrong. However, they did so because NOT doing so would have been much, much worse. A company like AIG or General Motors falling into the abyss (the latter in particular) would have probably damaged the United States automotive

Revitalization of the American Car Industry
Words: 2115 Length: 7 Document Type: Term Paper

General Motors was founded in 1908 and has been the largest manufacturer, designer, building and marketer of cars and trucks throughout the world since 1921. It sells vehicles in more than 200 countries worldwide and maintains assembly, manufacturing, distribution or warehousing operations in 53 of these countries. In 2000, it sold 8.6 million cars and trucks - constituting 15.1% of the entire world vehicle market (the world's biggest share) at

Reasoning for Alternative Fuels All Other Things
Words: 2741 Length: 10 Document Type: Essay

Reasoning for Alternative Fuels All other things being equal, the energy source with the lowest cost will always be pursued after in the cargo transportation world. The supremacy of petroleum-derived from fuels is an outcome of the comparative ease with which they can be stored and competently used for the internal combustion engine vehicle. Other types of fossil fuels (propane, natural gas and methanol) can be used as transportation fuels

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now